If I Were Food

I am an oxidized avocado, poorly preserved and unappealing to consume even though the flavor is still the same. I am a bruised grapefruit being avoided at the breakfast table. My content is desirable but my presentation is questionable.

Here I am trying to be a vicar with the vocabulary of a four year old and no prior knowledge of my environment. It feels like everyone assumes I am competent in this work purely on this basis that the ELCA sent me but they also struggle to see me as clergy because I cannot laugh at their jokes or sit and have long meaningful conversations like pastor types do. This could also be me entirely in my own head and insecure about this language barrier. On sunday mornings I practice reading the lecturas before worship and I still find myself to be embarrassed as I read below normal speed, backtracking over words that are probably common knowledge in spanish. During meetings I sit down with my notepad or tablet ready to be engaged until I conclude that I have absolutely not idea what is going on and shut down. It is so hard not to want to give up but there is only so many times I can ask for people to play charades with me.

Presently I am straddling the not so fine line between an enthusiastic presentation and complete disengagement. There are times when I want to speak and be involved in the small group discussions. It is there that I am over emphasizing hand gestures or cheering when I get words right. That led me into an uncomfortable situation where a handful of micro- aggressions came about from an older woman as she associated my aesthetic with the baptist tradition and so on and so forth. Then there are times when I am exhausted at trying to listen to soft spoken people run through sentences like Usain Bolt at the Olympics.

I am not even the bull in the white

I come off as stand offish while the people around me continue to speak and look confusingly at me when my responses are limited to “Oh yea?” and “Oh ok.” Clearly neither approach has benefited me at this point and I am still trying to remove the stone cold New York glare off of my face as I walk around in my collar. As of now I suck at casually smiling, communicating in spanish, and creating a pastoral presence. Maybe Latin America is not my future call?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some days when I feel great about my communication skills. Sometimes I come home and reflect on the conversations that were had and realize it was all in spanish. The other day I met the first communion class and received so much love from a bunch of ten and eleven year olds.

They were patient and kind. During free time I was invited to play with them outside. We exchanged hand games from my childhood and games of tag from theirs. For a few hours I felt like a banana covered in Dulce de Leche during Merienda.

I was wanted and engulfed. In one night I found mutuality amongst children as we both had something to share with each other. They do not know who is the ELCA nor do they know my credentials. To them, I am just a woman in a clergy shirt with her cat Fideo (Penne’s new name is spanish for “Spaghetti”). That was my time to present my pastoral skills and to show them I will care for and support them like my Supervisor does. Amongst the youth, one’s title is earned not given.

I am a peeled orange, vulnerable.

I sat with my Supervisor for our first one on one. “How are you feeling?” she asked me. How am I not feeling? What exactly am I feeling? For years I have relied on my personality and smooth talking to get me through life. I am personable. I ask the right questions. It does not take much for people to feel good around me. Those same gifts I have sewed and tended to for years are no longer available to me. Those crops are out of season. How am I feeling? Like The Little Mermaid brushing her hair with a fork. Discombobulated and confused as to why my methods are not efficient.

I am hiding behind administrative work and instant coffee. God how I miss my Colombian Dark Roast. Sometimes this feels like the longest game of tag and I am it. Even when I think I’m catching up, I am still behind. For someone who has just naturally been good at learning, this is a very rough place to be. I told my supervisor “This is the first time I have not been able to build relationships with the congregation.” Does this mean that the congregation does not like me? No, I’m the cute New York Vicar with vibrant head wraps and a Septum ring.

It means there is a gap between the members and me that has yet to be bridged. We are at the same train station looking at each other from opposing platforms. There is a draft that flows right between us. I hate the disconnect.

Is this how Moses felt when God had called him to lead out of slavery in Egypt? He doubted himself and pleaded with God. He too felt disconnected and unable to speak to the people of the nation. I get it Moses. Regardless of his skills and qualifications, how does one communicate when there is a barrier between the two bodies? I always need to tell myself, God does not make mistakes, people do. And I tend to say this after I have finished struggling with what I feel God calls me to do. So my question is how? If Aaron was appointed to lead with Moses, to be the connector between Moses and the Hebrews, who then is my Aaron? Or am I supposed to be Aaron from the ELCA to Grand Bourg? No, this is my narrative, I’m Moses.

Mood:Just happy the whole parting the seas thing worked out

Not as some prophetic figure either but as merely a leader in a community of God looking to support God’s people as we move into Canaan, a healthier place as church. 

As I was continuing to my thoughts the following line was going to begin with “I want,” and maybe that is my problem today. There is a lot of things that I want that maybe God does not have in plan for me. I may want an Aaron but this is not the part of Exodus I am thinking of. No, I think we are farther in it then I had planned. This is the desert when the people are doubting their own wants of liberation, telling Moses they rather be slaves in Egypt. I am both the people and Moses contemplating what to do now that I am here in Argentina. God moved me out of my comfort zone and I accepted the call. Fideo and I boarded the plane and made it out of Egypt but Argentina is not necessarily my promise land. Argentina is journey. Moses would call upon God and ask time and time again how to keep the people together. The people continuously fell short of God’s commands. Yet God did not give up entirely on the Hebrews. Clearly this story continues on for a while and essentially the original people never made it to Canaan. This journey was passed down to the children to go forward. Even Moses did not make it. Maybe that is something else to ponder. Not every journey ends in pure glory. Rather, sometimes the glory is seen in hindsight as the person who endured the struggle. 

Pharaoh: "What are thoseeeeeeee?"

I am a boiled potato, slowly being mashed into a new form. I am being placed in uncomfortable conditions, conditions that softens the hardness of my exterior, conditions that make me more eligible to be consumed.

The applied pressure will not diminish me but give me newness in my presentation. I will be shapeless, able to adjust to any setting, or so I hope. This post was originally written after my first week in Grand Bourg, my third week in Argentina. This has now been home for officially a month and though I still struggle, my anxieties have lessened.  Eleven months. That is all. I can do this.

If not for myself, maybe for them?

#ReclaimMissionary